Retro Review – Transformers: Five Faces of Darkness

Originally five episodes from the original Transformers cartoon series, Five Faces of Darkness was later repackaged as a feature length film, making it a sequel to Transformers: The Movie. Picking up where The Movie left off, Five Faces of Darkness takes place in a time after the end of the Great War between the Autobots and the Decepticons. The Autobots find themselves living in peace and harmony, but it is destined to be short lived as a group of Decepticons seek to revive Galvatron and reignite the Cybertronian conflict. Unbeknownst to both factions though, an even more sinister and ancient evil is hatching a nefarious plot to destroy all Transformers.

The first thing that most people notice about Five Faces of Darkness is that it is one of the ugliest looking Transformers stories ever committed to screen. The slickness which we saw in The Movie is long gone and the entire colour palette has a blotchy muddy look to it. This problem is compounded by near constant glaring animation errors which give the whole production a cheap and rushed appearance. The character models often look misshapen and don’t move about convincingly either.

Five Faces of Darkness‘ sub-par aesthetics can largely be pegged down to a low budget. This also explains why the likes of Judd Nelson and Leonard Nimoy were not retained in their roles as Rodimus Prime and Galvatron respectively. The latter is sorely missed. While his replacement, Frank Welker, puts in an enthusiastic performance as the now demented Galvatron, the decision to make him crazy (and the high-pitched squaking that comes with it) really takes away from the character’s sense of menace and reduces him to something of a comedic sideshow. That said though, there is something to be said for a purple robot yelling, “Who disturbs my plasma bath!?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VFIekpTeuU

One thing which Five Faces of Darkness has going for it is that it greatly expands on the Transformers‘ lore. The villainous Quintessons, a strange race of semi-mechanical aliens whom first appeared in Transformers: The Movie, are revealed to be the Transformers’ creators in what remains to this day one of the most shocking revelations in Transformers history. As far as they are concerned, the planet of Cybertron is theirs by right and the Transformers are usurpers who have stolen their homeland (of course, they leave out the bit where they used the Transformers as a race of slaves when they try to justify their actions).

Aside from the greatly expanded backstory, there is precious little to commend in Five Faces of Darkness. The two main ingredients which had made The Transformers such a great show up until that point, the action scenes and the characters, are largely underwhelming here. There is no great action set piece to instill a sense of wonder into the viewer, such as Optimus Prime and Megatron’s iconic clash atop Sherman Dam or the Dinobots taking on Devastator in an epic battle. On the contrary, the somehow managed to make a fight between an Autobot the size of a city and a robotic Godzilla monster a dull affair. The characters aren’t really gripping either. Throwing the likes of Blurr and Wheelie, with their annoying vocal gimmicks, into the spotlight was a bad call. Alas, with all of the good characters getting killed in The Movie, there really wasn’t all that much left to work with.

Five Faces of Darkness is a largely uninspiring sci-fi adventure with more bad elements than good. Transfomers completists will probably want to check it out for the sake of filling in the gaps in their knowledge of Transformers history, but it’s simply not well made enough to be considered legitimately enjoyable.

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Sean is Geek Ireland's resident dinosaur enthusiast, having been fascinated by prehistory since a time before he could read, speak or stand in an upright position (he still struggles to do at least one of these things on a daily basis).
Known as one of the biggest dinosaur fans Ireland has ever produced, Sean has delivered talks on his favourite subject at many venues and events including the Irish Film Institute, the UCD Science Expression Festival, Tayto Park, Dublin Comic Con and even London's Comedy Store.